10 Questions for 10 Days of Reflection in 5773

Rabbi Todd Markley

As this Shabbat approaches, and with it the anticipation of our Rosh Hashanah celebrations which begin on Sunday evening, we can't help but look forward with hope and excitement to a fresh new year ahead.  Interestingly, however, the Biblical name for this holiday was not Rosh Hasnahah - literally, "the head of the year" - but rather, Yom Hazikaron - a day of remembrance.  It is telling that just as we are focusing our sights on the future, on a whole new year with limitless possibilities, we are invited to remember our past as well.  No doubt, it is our past that is supposed to inform our future vision, our goals for self improvement and self realization, in the year ahead.

But this is challenging.  Quite frankly, I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday morning (though, our daughter Mia tells me that I had cereal, and she's usually right about these sorts of things).  Am I really supposed to be able to remember all the way back to this time last year?  What were the goals I set for myself then?  What was my reality as 5772 was arriving?  About what was I excited, anxious, concerned?  What was I trying to work on then, and how did I do at achieving those goals over these past twelve months? 

While the rapidly developing technology in our lives brings with it the potential for both blessing and curse, I have discovered an online tool that has made this process of cheshbon hanefesh - an annual accounting of my soul - much more meaningful for those of us who have a challenging time recalling last year's goals and resolutions.  Last year, Ellen Dietrick, our Director of Early Childhood Learning, suggested that I visit  http://www.doyou10q.com/.  I created a free username and password, and during the Ten Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I was invited to answer one question each day.  Biggies like "Describe a significant experience that has happened in the past year. How did it affect you? Are you grateful? Relieved? Resentful? Inspired?" or "Is there something that you wish you had done differently this past year? Alternatively, is there something you're especially proud of from this past year?"  Each day I shared real and heartfelt reflections on the question of the day.  Going through that process itself was renewing, cathartic, and transformative for me, but that's not even the best part.  The website then "locked my answers away in their secure vault" for an entire year, and this past week they e-mailed last year's answers back to me.  I had an immediate and real time reminder of where I was one year ago - how I've grown and how I haven't, where I've achieved and where I have not.  Soon, a new set of questions will begin to arrive, and this year's reflection process, informed by last year's, will begin again.  Whether you use the http://www.doyou10q.com/ as a tool or not (and I recommend it highly!) I encourage each of us to engage in a similar ritual as we welcome a new year.  As Rabbis Byron Sherwin and Seymour Cohen teach:

"One of the most popular and regularly observed rituals in America is the annual medical checkup.  Each year, millions of people are examined, tested, and evaluated in order to determine the state of their physical health and well-being...When sickness is diagnosed, a regimen is prescribed to help restore health.  What may be ascertained during the examination period can lead to a change of life-style for the rest of the year, indeed, for the remainder of one's life.  During the High Holiday season, Jews undergo a kind of 'spiritual checkup.'" (Sherwin and Cohen, How to be a Jew, p. 59)

As you engage in your own rituals of spiritual checkup, may your memories of this past year inspire new growth, strengthened resolve, and fresh hope for the upcoming months of 5773.

Michele, Mia, and Adam join me in wishing you and your family a peaceful Shabbat and a new year that is filled with blessings and sweetness!

Shabbat Shalom v'L'shanah Tovah,

Todd

Jacqueline Agranat's Sinai Statement: Celebrating Confirmation and TBS Teen Programs

Ed. Note: This second in our series of our Confirmand's Sinai Statements comes from Jacqueline Agranat. Jacqueline talks about her experience during this confirmation year, and shares her perspective on shalom.

Shalom everyone. This one word, “shalom,” has multiple meanings. The main three meanings are "hello, goodbye, and peace." In Hebrew, however, "shalom" is related to the word, "shleimut" which means "wholeness, health, and contentment." Being a part of this temple allows me to feel all the different parts that Shalom can offer. School cannot compete with the environment that this synagogue provides. In school we are taught facts, and forced to memorize them in order to do well on the upcoming test. In Confirmation, however, we are taught stories, lessons, and facts as well, but we do not need to memorize them for a test. We discuss these teachings and share what they mean to us. Each commandment from our Torah tradition impacts each individual differently. Confirmation class allows each of us to be our own person, rather than just another student in a class. We have come to understand that we are part of a larger tradition of adding our own voices to Torah, making it speak to our lives today.

As I was growing up, going to temple was a mandatory activity in my busy life. After everyone became Bar or Bat Mitzvah, in many families, it was the kid’s decision whether or not they should continue learning at temple. After observing how much my older brother Josh enjoyed his time here, I was willing to continue with it. Now I can see why he enjoyed it so much. This place, this beautiful synagogue, makes me feel secure. It wouldn’t be the same without the people that are here with me. Each member of the Confirmation Class of 2011 is a unique individual. It has been incredibly refreshing to spend time with the members of Confirmation and get to know them better. I know we all can relate when I say that the sharing circle before each class, during which we can check in about one another’s lives, is something we all enjoy. We are able to speak our minds and know that everyone’s support is present. Confirmation is one of the few places where I feel comfortable enough to really speak my mind without being judged, and I thank you all for allowing this shleimut, this wholeness, to be possible.

--Jacqueline Agranat

Ben Grebber's Sinai Statement: Celebrating Confirmation and the Ten Commandments

Ed. Note: This past Tuesday night, our Confirmands shared their "Sinai Statements" with those of us who attended their Erev Shavuot service of Confirmation. Over the next several weeks, we will be sharing many of their statements. At the service, all 15 of the Confirmands read from the book of Exodus. The Torah scroll from which they read has special meaning. Read on to learn why.

When God passed the Torah down from Mount Sinai, it was given to Moses to share with the Jewish people. They, in turn, were now responsible to learn it, teach it, and pass it down through the generations. This created the strong heritage that we share today. After having a very special guest stay at our home, I now understand that heritage and what the Torah means to our people and to me.

During the Temple renovation some years back, my family kept a Torah from our sanctuary in our house for several months. We kept it free from dust and potential harm. We were a surrogate ark! At first, having the Torah in our house was cool but I was somewhat indifferent to it.

As the months went by, our new “house guest”, the Torah, took on a different meaning to me. The Torah became a member of our family as odd as that sounds. I passed it every day on my way to the kitchen. I checked on it to make sure that it was covered and protected.

The Torah was always a talking point when we had Jewish guests at the house. I realized that to a Jewish person, the Torah is immediately identifiable and even the least observant person seems to revere it as being something special, almost royal. I began to see the Torah as representing something greater than just a borrowed “thing” from our Temple.

After a few months of “Torah babysitting”, the Temple renovations were complete and the Torah had to be returned to its rightful place. My family was devastated. The Torah had become a part of our family, and it was sad to see it go.

The following Hanukah though, we were surprised yet again when my parents gave us a Torah of our own. Now we truly had a family Torah.

Once we put our new Torah in the infamous family room Torah Ark, I learned more about our Torah. I came to understand the Torah’s age, how fragile it is, and that it holds the Five Books of Moses. In my Holocaust class, I learned that many Torahs were destroyed by the Nazis and that some were actually secretly carried by my ancestors to America from places far away. For many of my ancestors, getting the Torah to a new and safe land was just as important as getting their families there. This was similar to the story of our Torah which came from Poland during the Holocaust.

Having our special Family Torah, I began to understand that when God instructed Moses to give the Torah to the Jewish people to pass its lessons and teachings down to future generations, God was instructing me to do the same. So I started asking questions about what stories the Torah contains. I took a greater interest in its teachings. Is this how the Jewish people felt at Mt. Sinai? Was it just an object given to them by Moses or did they see it as something more? Did they know that it would link future generations of Jews to them?

Even more important, over those months that the Temple’s Torah was in our house followed by the arrival of our Family Torah, I began to understand how the Torah links me to past generations. My Jewish ancestors learned the stories and teachings contained in the Torah just as I have throughout my religious school education. Through the strength and perseverance of the Jewish people, even in times of great hardship and war, the Torah is here today for me. I am a link in that chain of possession. My great-grandparents read from a Torah in Russia; my grandparents read from the Torah in America. My parents read from the Torah too – my father right here in this sanctuary. The Torah allows me to share that link in our heritage with all of them. It’s what binds us all together as Jews and as one family.

Just as Moses did on Mt. Sinai, we, too, will pass our family Torah from generation to generation. Like the Jewish people in Poland who read from our Torah years ago, I read from our sacred Torah when I became a Bar Mitzvah. My sister followed me by reading from it when she became Bat Mitzvah and my brother will follow our footsteps when he becomes a Bar Mitzvah. Like Moses, we will pass our family Torah from generation to generation, sharing the stories that go along with it, linking our future family generations with our current generation today. This is what keeps our history so strong. That is what identifies us as Jews and makes me who I am. I am proud that my Confirmation classmates and I will read from this sacred scroll tonight as we affirm our connections to Torah, to Temple Beth Shalom, and to one another.

--Ben Grebber

God Talk

From Rabbi Perlman's Rosh Hashanah Morning Sermon on God.......

".....Throughout all of last year, as you know, our congregation engaged in a wonderful process of formulating a new Temple Beth Shalom vision statement. Many members of our community set about the important task of reflection, consideration, and crafting a statement that accurately articulated who we are as a congregation and what we strive to make real. The document, as it developed - along with the evolving mission statement - spoke of learning, prayer, sacred community, and tikkun olam - healing our broken world. In the spring, a draft of the proposed vision statement was introduced to our Board of temple leadership for feedback and comments. Both in substance and poetry, the leaders gathered that night affirmed the hard work that had already been done. And then, part of the way through the meeting, someone raised a hand and asked the question: "Where is the word 'God' in all of this?" Immediately people started scanning the statement. The questioner was correct. Indeed, while the text for the proposed vision had used such words as "holy," "sacred," and "covenant," the word "God" was no where to be seen."

"For some, this was not problematic at all. Those other words alluded to God, even if the statement did not mention God specifically. And this, they felt was enough. Furthermore, some commented that there are many people in our community who do not believe in God and that using such specific language might distance them from what the vision was trying to express. Others, however, respectfully disagreed - commenting that, as a temple - a House of God - we should not be apologetic and speak around the word "God" but include it."

"Sitting next to Beth, our temple President, I recall thinking that this was one of the best Board meetings in which I had ever participated. The "God Talk" was thoughtful, impassioned, personal, and respectful......And, all the while, I couldn't help but wonder at how it was that God had somehow become a kind of "third rail" topic - one that needed to be avoided - at temple."

"This morning, I would like for us to begin a conversation about God. I would like for us to thoughtfully consider what we believe - what we don't believe - why - and, perhaps most importantly, what difference it makes.......The goal, of course is not to force faith - for as we know, to be Jewish, one need not specifically believe in G-d - but rather to grow through our engaging our tradition and one another."

......."By the conclusion of the Board meeting during which the 'Great TBS God Debate' took place, it was decided that our congregation's new Vision Statement should, in fact, specifically include God.....and should do so in such a way that both honors the members of our community - and, at the same time, states that an important part of who we are is that we take our evolving understanding of God seriously."

"The specific God statement in our vision reads as follows:
'We seek a relationship with God that is personal. Living in the tradition of being Yisrael - one who wrestles with God - we cherish our diversity of belief and Jewish expression. Each of us thoughtfully searches for understanding, guidance, and inspiration from the teachings and many voices of our tradition."

Some Questions to Consider for Your Post:

• If you had been at the Board Meeting, what would your opinion have been?
• What are your thoughts about God? What do you believe? What don't you believe? Why?
• What are your thoughts about the TBS Vision Statement regarding God and our community?

We look forward to seeing this community conversation develop!!

Chag Sameach!! Happy Sukkot!!